


Words and Music

by puss_nd_boots



Series: Stargazer [6]
Category: Alice Nine
Genre: Hand Worship, M/M, Oral Sex, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 20:15:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1524170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/puss_nd_boots/pseuds/puss_nd_boots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shou and Hiroto go out for a late dinner, and Hiroto has a lot on his mind when it comes to relationships and songwriting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words and Music

**Author's Note:**

> Sixth installment in my very first Alice Nine fanfic series, written in 2011.

It's a myth that couples who are madly, crazily in love want to spend every single moment together. Sometimes, they just need to spend quality time with their pets. (Especially if one member of our hypothetical couple is a dog person and the other a cat person.) Or work on whatever their job entails. (Say, songwriting.) Or just chill out.

Hiroto is doing two of the three at the moment. He's blogging and posting to Twitter, answering questions from fangirls, and leaning over between Tweets to play with Mogu, scritching his ears and throwing his little doggie-ball across the room for him to fetch and bring back. Mogu takes off after it, yipping happily, glad to have his master's attention. (He's been sharing it of late with That Person Who Smells Like Cat, after all.) A bit earlier, he had been talking on Skype to a friend from another band (who said pretty much the same thing all Hiroto's friends have been saying lately: "Shou confessed his love to you? It's about goddamn time!")

The songwriting will come later, further on into the night. Hiroto wishes his muses weren't so damn nocturnal. Were they deliberately waiting until after he and Shou finished their nightly passion? Or maybe it was the passion itself that spurred them to life? Whatever it was, one thing was for certain - he was on a songwriting tear like none other since he'd first joined the band, when he was popping out tunes like Corona and Fantasy on an almost daily basis.

Glancing at the clock on his computer, he realizes he's lost track of time. Crap. He should have eaten dinner two hours ago. Of course, when one is in a band, one does tend to lose track of "normal" mealtimes. Picking up his phone, he mentally runs through an inventory of local restaurants he knows of that would still be open at this hour. He was planning to meet up with Shou sometime tonight anyway - they haven't missed spending a single night together since Budokan, not even when Shou went to the Gazette's party (where everyone said pretty much the same thing all Shou's friends have been saying lately: "You confessed your love to Hiroto? It's about goddamn time!")

Finding his lover in his contacts list, he shoots off a quick message: "Want to meet me at the yakinuku place near my apartment in about 20 minutes?" He's been craving yakinuku lately anyway, and he knows the place stays open late - and can persuaded to stay open later if a couple of J-rock idols are eating there. There's an advantage, sometimes, to having a recognizable face, even though Hiroto really hates the idea of taking advantage of it. He's in this game for love of music, not perks.

The answer comes back almost instantly: "You forgot to eat, too? All right, I'll be there." And Hiroto suddenly finds himself very glad Nao isn't aware of their current situation. If he knew two of his bandmates had missed dinner, he'd drag them down to some burger place and insist they eat a ton of fried stuff. If you are what you eat, Hiroto thinks, Nao is going to start mooing pretty soon.

As he shuts off his computer and prepares to leave, another melody starts playing in his head. He can't shut it off, it seems. Well, at least this time, it didn't wait until he was warm and cozy and curled next to Shou and wanting nothing more than some nice, post-sex sleep, thank you. By the time he reaches the restaurant and is waiting outside for Shou, the tune has gotten so loud and insistent that he has to get it out of his system - and, dammit, he has no guitar to do that with. Muses, it seems, are not only fickle, they have a twisted sense of humor.

He ends up turning on his phone's voice recorder and humming the tune into it - after briefly considering playing the melody out on the phone keypad. (You wouldn't get the proper range of sharps and flats, though. Touch tones have severe limitations as a musical instrument.) He's just finishing up and is flipping over to Twitter when Shou arrives. And he's looking damn gorgeous as always, even though he's just wearing jeans and a plain winter jacket and no makeup. If Hiroto wasn't so hungry, he'd suggest skipping the dinner part and going straight back to his apartment.

"Hi, there," Shou says, restraining himself from adding "love." They're in public, after all, even though the street in front of the restaurant isn't exactly crowded. Neither is the restaurant, for that matter - there's just a couple of other tables that have other diners, and they look like they're finishing up. "Good thing you said something, or I might not have eaten at all."

He pushes open the door and Hiroto enters the restaurant, where they're enthusiastically greeted by the manager - with more enthusiasm, for sure, than he shows customers who don't make regular appearances on the cover of Shoxx. He ushers them to a corner table, fires up the grill and brings out two magificent pieces of beef, trimmed with egg and sesame and vegetables and, for all they know, gold dust in there somewhere.

Almost in unison, both men raise their phones, click pictures of the Wonder Beef and start typing Twitter messages about having dinner with each other. "Mine posted first," Shou says, teasingly.

"My message is longer," Hiroto retorts, sticking his tongue out at his lover, playfully. Which results in Shou giving him an even more playful poke with his chopsticks. Hiroto tries to poke back, Shou parries like the sticks are tiny swords - and then, suddenly, a mini-kendo match breaks out, the two of them swinging the chopsticks at each other, thrusting and parrying, and laughing their heads off. The other people in the restaurant turn their heads and give them curious looks, wondering who these two strangely familiar grown men are who are behaving like children.

When the "war" finally settles down, Hiroto picks up his piece of Wonder Beef very carefully with the long cooking chopsticks. "Bet I can beat you to the grill," he says.

"You're on." As it turns out, both pieces of Wonder Beef drop to the grill in unison, letting out a very loud sizzle. "It's a draw."

"There's still the vegetables." And as they begin heaping the other items on their plates onto the grill, Hiroto gets serious. "There's something I wanted to talk to you about, Shou."

"Ehh?" That came out of nowhere, and it catches Shou a little off-guard. For a moment, he's worried that Hiroto is going to start talking about their relationship, say he's having doubts about it, that he didn't want a love affair between two of them to interfere with the band. After all, he knows other musicians who could very well be romantically involved with each other, but they refused to take the final step, out of fear that the end of the relationship could spell the end of their group. "What about?"

"It's about . . ." Hiroto pokes at a clump of mushrooms and onions, stirring them around so they cook evenly. "Songwriting. I want to write with you again. It's been too long since we did that, and we haven't really written together since . . ." The words trailed off, the unspoken ending there - "since we became a couple."

Shou pokes at his own vegetables, looking thoughtful. "We don't really write together, though. Or we haven't before. I mean, with Gemini, Saga and I talked a lot about the ideas behind it, but I've always just listened to the tune and written whatever came into my head." Okay, sometimes the composer of a song would give him a general guideline of what to do - for instance, "I see this song having kind of a heartbroken feel" - but usually, music and lyrics were written completely separately.

Hiroto shakes his head, poking a little at the egg on top of the Wonder Beef to see if it's stiffened enough to flip the thing over without creating a gooey, eggy mess all over the grill. "It's more of a collaborative process than you think. You say you listen to what we write and then write what comes into your head? Everything you've written for my melodies feels like, well, me. The kind of lyrics I'd write if I was good at that kind of thing." Hiroto had never even attempted lyrics since he'd been in Alice Nine. Why should he, when Shou was so good at what he did?

Shou leans over, flipping his own piece of Wonder Beef, then leans toward Hiroto, whispering, "That's because your tunes sound so much like you, love. They carry so much of your personality. When you first brought in Fantasy? Even if you hadn't been the one who played it for us, I'd know it was your song." Shou remembers writing the lyrics to that one all too well, too. He'd opened it with "The constellation of Leo is twinkling again . . ." A reference, of course, to Hiroto's stargazing.

"And isn't it the same with the other two as well?" Hiroto says. "Don't your lyrics take on the feel of whoever wrote them?" He knows that the whole of Gemini has Saga stamped on it almost beginning to end, other than the few songs the bassist didn't write.

This takes Shou aback. "I've never thought about it," he says. "At least, not too hard." Creativity was something you never did put much thought into - at least, not your own. It was something that just sort of flowed, naturally.

"It's intimate, in a way," Hiroto says, thoughtfully, scooping some of the now-done vegetables onto his plate. "We give you the tunes, which are little pieces of us - little bits of our souls went into them - and then you listen to them, and interpret them, and write the words. Which come from little bits of your soul. And yet, since you're basing them on our tunes . . . they're carrying little pieces of us, too."

Shou is quiet. Hiroto has given him a lot of food for thought, and his mind is carefully turning it over. What he said is making a lot of sense. What he had been doing all along . . . well, it certainly explained the unique bond his band had, didn't it? It took a high level of knowing each other, of understanding each other, to be able to collaborate the way Hiroto was talking about.

"That's why I want to write songs with you now," Hiroto says, quietly, as he removes the now-done beef from the grill. "Because now that we're intimate physically, and emotionally . . . I want to see what happens when we're intimate with each other musically."

Shou takes a quick glance around to see if anyone is watching them. The other two tables are now empty - the first group has long gone, the second are now up at the register, paying the manager. He then reaches out and covers Hiroto's hand with his, squeezing gently.

"You just reminded me of why I love you," he says.

There's a long pause as they just sit there, hands linked, eyes focused on each other, communicating without words - or, for that matter, music. They don't notice the laughter of the manager, the chiming of the clock as it strikes the hour, the strong smell off too-much-roasting beef . . .

Until Shou suddenly does notice the latter, and is snapped out of his reverie. "Oh, no, the beef!" He snatches the Wonder Beef off the grill, to see . . . well, it's right at the border between well-done and burnt. Thirty seconds more and it would have been inedible charcoal.

"Good thing I don't mind well-done," he says.

Hiroto laughs, and they start eating, now thoroughly brought back down to earth. Except Hiroto is humming the tune he was composing outside between bites. He is feeling very, very good about this song now.

He can't wait to see how Shou is going to finish it off.

* * *  
It's another hour and a half before they leave. The manager gladly keeps the restaurant open a half-hour past closing, and brings out more goodies for them to roast on the grill. (None of which end up as well-done as Shou's initial Wonder Beef).

Hiroto sends off a couple of Tweets before they head back to his place - one praising the hospitality of their host, the other saying he's going to send the data of the song he'd recorded before dinner to Shou. Shou peeks over his shoulder at the phone as he's typing. "Song data?"

"A tune I'm working on," Hiroto says. "You'll see."

"So this is going to be our couple-song, isn't it?" Shou reaches down and links his fingers through Hiroto's. Fortunately, the restaurant is walking distance from their destination - neither feels like driving right now. This moment is worth prolonging.

"Our new band song," Hiroto corrects. "Nobody will know it's a couple-song but us." And Tora and Saga, of course, but he's not going to bring that up right now.

As they draw near to Hiroto's building, and Shou sees his lover fumble in his pocket for his keys, his heart starts gently pounding in anticipation. He wonders how long it will be between walking in the door and their ending up in a passionate embrace. After all, it's rare that they walk calmly toward the bedroom. Usually, they only take a few steps into the living room before one of them grabs the other, and . . .

Well, it doesn't take long this time. The door has barely closed behind them when Hiroto throws his arms around Shou, pulling him close and pressing their lips together. Maybe it's a reaction to the conversation they just had, about the intimacy of writing together, maybe because of the atmosphere they were just in at the restaurant, romantic and cozy, just the two of them . . .

And maybe it's just because they're two men in love who want each other like crazy. Shou's willing to go with that explanation . . . especially when Hiroto moves down to his neck and starts nibbling. Gently, of course - they're both careful of visible marks - but those are definitely teeth scraping at the sensitive skin of his throat. And Hiroto knows this is one of the things that drives his lover mad, of course.

So Shou retaliates by picking up Hiroto's hand and bringing it to his lips, running his tongue over the fingers, feeling the hard calluses at the tips brought about by long hours on the strings. Shou draws one finger into his mouth and starts to suck on it, running his tongue over it as it slides in and out of his lips.

Hiroto raises his head, moaning. "Tease," he says on a ragged breath. Of course, Shou is a professional tease; his ability to drive the fangirls insane is renowned. But even that is nothing compared to what he's capable of up close and personal.

"You don't like me licking and sucking your fingers?" Of course, the tone of Shou's voice just backs up what Hiroto was calling him - as do his actions. He runs his tongue quickly up and down the side of his middle finger, swirls it around the tip of it, then kisses the tip of the ring finger. "But I like making love to your hands."

Hiroto is a quivering blob of jelly at this point. His hands are an erogenous zone for him. They're his life, his fortune . . . but only Shou knows how crazy it drives him when they're worshipped in a way that has nothing to do with his guitar playing.

He manages to gasp, "Why?"

"Because those hands are beautiful, of course." He turns the palm upward and kisses it. "And they make such fabulous music." Shou's tongue comes out and touches the heel of Hiroto's hand, dragging slowly upward until it reaches the tip of his middle finger, leaving a hot and wet trail in his wake and making Hiroto give out a long, low moan.

"Shou, if you don't stop that . . ."

Shou ignores him, of course. He slides his mouth down on Hiroto's first two fingers, sucking on them, and Hiroto moans again. How the hell can this man be driving him so crazy without touching him below the waist - without them even having taken their clothes off yet?

"All right," Hiroto pants. "If you can make love to my hands, then I can make love to your voice." And he assaults Shou's neck again, starting to kiss alongside the side of his throat, right next to his vocal cords. He hears the moan in response, feels the vibration against his lips, so he follows that up with running his tongue slowly up Shou's throat, bottom to top, the same way his lover did with his fingers.

"Hiroto . . ." Shou moans in a husky tone, and then moans again as he runs his tongue back down, using just the very tip this time, swirling it around his skin. "Oh, love, what are you . . ."

"Fair's fair," Hiroto says in a near-growl before biting Shou's neck as hard as he dare to, just barely on the edge of leaving teeth marks, and he's rewarded with another hoarse cry. Shou's tongue is on his fingers again, so that just prompts Hiroto to bring his tongue back to Shou's neck.

"Bed," Shou gasps. Which, of course, both of them know is shorthand for "Get in that bedroom, take off your clothes and get on the bed, the sooner the better." They've both said it at one time or another. They head for the next room, unfastening buttons and zippers as they go, so as soon as they're over the threshold, they can start peeling away layers of fabric.

One of these days, they're going to do a slow, sensual undressing-each-other thing. But it never seems to happen, not in the mad urgency of their passion.

Once they're on the bed, they wrap their arms around each other, lips meeting lips, which becomes tongue meeting tongue very rapidly. Hands slide over heated skin, caressing the firmness of a bicep, the hard peak of a nipple, the sensual curve of an ass. When Hiroto takes his lips from Shou's so he can lower his head to a nipple, sucking and tonguing, the older man lets out a moan as loud and hungry as the ones he was uttering in the other room.

"I have an idea," he pants. "About what we were doing in the other room . . ."

Hiroto raises his head, a puzzled look in his eyes. He's sucked on Shou's neck enough, and he's really liking what he's sucking on now.

"You making love to my voice, me making love to your hands," Shou replies. And he leans over, whispering something to Hiroto . . . and the younger man's eyes light up. Oh, yes, he can live with that idea.

Hiroto lies on his back, and Shou turns himself around so he's kneeling astride Hiroto's shoulders and leaning over to take his lover in his mouth. The position allows him to slide down . . . and down . . . and down some more, until Hiroto thinks he's going to be swallowed whole.

He's nearly deep-throating him. It's as far as he can go, comfortably - any more will trigger his gag reflex. Shou pauses for a second, then starts to suck and move backward.

Hiroto is so stunned by this, so shocked in the nicest way possible, that he almost forgets what he's supposed to do on his end. My God, it feels so good, all that hot and wet enveloping him more and more . . . He really is making love to Shou's voice, or as close as he can come to it without causing his lover discomfort.

He reaches up - Shou's position has put his erection in easy grasp, and he wraps his fingers around the hard shaft, starting to stroke it. When he gets near the tip, he runs his thumb over the head, circling the opening.

The fingers of the other hand are rubbing around the base of his cock, making small circles on the hot, hard flesh just where it joins his body, then moving lower still, brushing lightly over his balls. He feels a vibration pass through his cock as Shou moans in response, and that brings forth a moan from Hiroto as well, both from the sensation and the idea of what they're doing - it's an act of worshipping each other's talents, adoring what each of them brings to the band, as much as a simple act of love between a couple.

Hiroto's fingers start to move faster, sliding around the shaft with a slight twisting motion, increasing the friction, as Shou starts to suck harder, sliding his head back and forth faster. On the outstroke, he pauses, tonguing the head of Hiroto's erection, stroking the sensitive underside.

The moans from both of them grow louder and more intense. Hiroto's fingers are moving rapidly, top to bottom, still caressing the base, and Shou is bringing his tongue into play more and more the faster he sucks, trying to seek out every sensitive spot, to make Hiroto moan more, to drive him toward ultimate fulfillment.

It's Hiroto who breaks first, his hips jerking off the bed as he lets out a long, loud cry, pouring himself into Shou's mouth as the ecstasy floods his body over and over. Shou stays with him until he's finished, sucking and swallowing until the last drop of essence has poured out, and then he gives him one last, loving lick clean - right before his own climax breaks, and he shouts out Hiroto's name as he's flooded with delicious heat, the come spilling out over the other man's fingers.

Finally, Shou turns himself around so he can kiss Hiroto's lips, and their tongues come out, flicking against each other. Hiroto nestles against Shou in their customary post-sex sleeping position, and they link hands, both voices joined in a sigh of contentment.

"I think I'm going to stay like this for awhile," Hiroto yawns.

"You and me both," Shou replies, kissing him again. "I love you. All of you, not just your hands."

"Love you too," Hiroto mumbles. He's dazed, and happy, and sleepy. So sleepy that for once, he'll be able to ignore the pull of the muses and sleep, at least for awhile. This is perfectly fine with him - this was a memorable evening in more ways than one.

After all, any good songwriting team has to solidify their partnership.


End file.
